


Jackhammer

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Forehead Kisses, Forehead Touching, Headaches & Migraines, M/M, Pain, Relief doesn't come easy in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 23:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10501611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Keith suffers from migraines and there is very little by way of relief in the castle. But Shiro tries his damnedest.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wolfsan11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfsan11/gifts).



> So, this was a fic request from @wolfsan11, and I hope it turned out well. I don't personally have migraines, but I have someone close to me who does so this was kinda nice in an odd way to get to work on. Thank you for the suggestion and I hope you all enjoy this!

“ –ith.”

There’s a light blinking in his periphery. It goes on and on, like a lighthouse screaming warning into the night, only he knows there’s no way to stop the impending crash. Sooner or later – maybe it’ll be in a minute, maybe in thirty – there’s going to be nothing more than splintered wood floating on the waves and groaning metal where his thoughts had once rightfully been. And he'll be left dredging up their remains, hoping they don't slide through his fingers, drowned and decayed, that maybe something good of them will be left intact. Something he can still build upon.

But the light keeps flashing. It may as well have been in farewell.

“Keith!”

A jolt sends his shoulders back, his forearms jumping off the table, and every bit of attention he can muster darts for the owner of that voice. The other Paladins are staring at him, concern warming their expressions and uncorking the guilt right in the very heart of him. _Pop!_ Keith tries not to shudder as something takes a hammer to the back of his head next. Across the table, Lance has a spoonful of green goo lifted from the serving dish, just waiting for Keith to give his consent to the offering. His gaze shifts from each one of them, skirting around Shiro because he can already see the look in his eyes speaking truths Keith would rather not confront at this moment.

Not here.

Not with all of them. 

The smile he offers is one constructed from thin ice. “Sorry, I think I’m a little worn out from today. . .”

He pushes away from the table with a shake of his head at Lance, whose mouth has taken a downward dive, the frown trying not to show just how much he might actually give a shit about this sudden spiral of events. Keith shrugs his shoulders, apologetic.

“I’m just gonna go lay down for a bit. Save some for me, okay?”

The goo drops into the bowl with a wet splatter. Lance’s lips part, dumbfounded, then he’s shaking his head as though the act itself might disassemble the odd atmosphere piling into the room around them. Brick by brick, take it all down, and maybe something like normalcy will fill the air instead, and Keith would be cutting quick with remarks to the stupidity Lance likes to taunt him with instead of walking out of the room like a man courting defeat. 

He doesn’t bother to look back. Because there’s something clawing up from the depths of his mind, sinking hooks through the soft matter of his brain and right into the hard back of his skull, and all the while there’s something metallic shrieking across the landscape. 

If he didn’t know better, he would have thought the whole castle was going down, and with it every hope for humanity, the very universe itself lost. A breath shivers through his chest. He forces the notion of dying causes to some place he can’t reach.

And still the light flickers. On then off, then on and off. 

Relentless.

*

When the door to his room slides open, it has pain scrambling up his throat and jetting out into the world in one harsh groan. He curls up tighter on his side, eyes screwing shut. If he can compress himself small enough then maybe he won't actually have to exist right now. But something is still splintering rock inside his head, driving inch-long shards of it into every thought until there’s not a single one of them he can turn over without bleeding for the effort.

And he wants to think, just enough to tell whoever it is to fuck right off to hell for their concern because there is nothing, absolutely nothing to be done, and it’s a truth that sits like a world across his shoulders, crushing everything right and reasonable and leaving him with only the debilitating weight of all the things he can’t defeat.

At this moment, Keith is certain it’s his own head that will be the death of him. He would have thought it almost funny, all the ways a man’s own thoughts, the very thing that makes him so fucking unstoppable in this universe, the thing they heralded back on Earth as testament to mankind’s greatness over all other things, is the one thing that will do him in, time and time again. Because the last thing a person can escape from is themselves and Keith. . .he has yet to find a way to extricate himself from this.

It was easier back on Earth, with its myriad of drugs and treatments popping up every other month all to help someone think without being obliterated by his own mind. But when you’re hundreds of millions of miles away from all of that? 

A laugh breaks itself open over Keith’s lips, rough as a gravel road, as he rolls himself over. The door slides shut just as he forces a single eye open, just enough to see Shiro silhouetted there, with a clear plastic bag in his hand and his mouth pulled into a tight but thoroughly dissolvable line. Discontent never sat with Shiro long. 

At least not in here.

“Almost told you to go fuck yourself,” Keith croaks as he shifts onto his back once more, letting his eyes fall shut to sink himself into an even deeper darkness than the one his room already provided. “Still might. . .”

Shiro chuckles softly. “I wouldn’t take any offense to it.”

“You never do.”

“That’s because it’s you.”

“Maybe one day I’ll mean it. . .”

 _That one_. . .well, that one came out a lot sharper than he had intended, and it has him grimacing, the harm entirely self-inflicted. Keith couldn’t imagine a day where he would mean it, but sometimes. . .sometimes when the pain is digging through his brain like it might uncover something of value in the mush of it, he thinks of all the things he had lost, the things he could still lose and all the ways he could lose them, and he begins to hate the way the hurt just keeps on plowing through his thoughts, up-ending everything and leaving the contents strewn across the floor of his head. All the reminders of the things that put the panic into his heart, all while the pain keeps jackhammering away, and he wants it all to stop, he does but it just doesn’t, it doesn’t and –

Something cool sets to his forehead. A shiver cascades down his body, and Keith reaches up to wrap his hand around Shiro’s left wrist. His grip slackens a breath later, fingertips trailing light as they slide from wrist to the line of Shiro’s pinky, crossing over each finger one by one until Keith settles his palm over top of Shiro's hand and finally breathes.

“They have something like ice here. I had Hunk find it for me in the kitchen. . .” Shiro’s voice is quiet, warm as summer rain. “My hand may have gotten a little cold from carrying it.”

Keith huffs out a laugh, finds himself almost sobbing on the next intake of air. 

Shiro turns his hand over and briefly interlaces their fingers. The world grows darker still. Keith feels the warmth against his forehead next, the air first as it ghosts out with Shiro’s breath, then his lips. Soft and relenting against his skin. 

“You’re such an idiot.” 

It’s a choked out, miserable sort of sound that comes from the very depths of relief, and it has Shiro laughing oh so wonderfully above him. Keith could love it, even in these moments, the way that laughter echoes gentle and calm, countering every bit of the grating and remorseless putting fang and claw against the inner workings of his head. 

“Sit up for a minute,” Shiro prods.

And Keith does, hissing against the sudden upstart of pain behind his eyes and screwing them shut further still. But Shiro moves quick, sliding into place behind him with a leg stretched out on either side of his figure, and eases Keith back down against him until all he can register is the familiar of Shiro’s body, his head nestling against thigh. The cold settles against his forehead once again, plastic bag cushioned by thin fabric and soaking through until it's wet against his skin and reminding him that snow does melt before spring. Water begins to trickle down over his temple, certain to soak hair and cloth eventually, but Keith can't bring himself care, because it starts to put the numb into his skull, the chill sliding its fingers through his thoughts and luring them into the stillness that only winter can bring.

Bit by bit. Breath by breath. 

Shiro sets a hand over Keith’s heart and begins to tap his index finger to the rhythm of his own heartbeat. 

One. Two. Three. 

Beat after beat. Life persisting through the pain. 

“You’re going to be okay, Keith.”


End file.
